Chapter 5 (social community)

SOCIAL COMMUNITY

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Figure 5.1 The Social Community Zone

Social Media Marketing, 2e©© Tracy L. Tuten and Michael R. Solomon 2015

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Social Networks

A social network is a set of socially relevant nodes connected by one or more relations.


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Diffusion of Innovations

Relative Advantage

Observability and

TrialabilityCompatibil

ity Simplicity ADOPTION


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Characteristics of Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites typically vary in terms of three important dimensions:1. Audience and degree of specialization2. The social objects that mediate the

relationships among members3. Degree of decentralization or openness


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Audience Specialization

An internal social network provides a method of communication and collaboration that is more dynamic and interactive.

An external social network is open to people who are not affiliated with the site’s sponsor.


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Social Objects and Passion-Centric Sites

Vertical networks describes the narrow, deep focus of social networking sites that differentiate themselves because they emphasize some common hobby, interest, or characteristic that draws members to the site.


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Decentralization

One of the big issues social media needs to confront is how to let people easily access multiple sites and understand where they go and why.


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Openness and Identity Portability

Social lock-in occurs when a user is unable to transfer social contacts and content from one social network to another.

Social networking fatigue comes in part from the need to manage multiple community accounts (and to forego some due to the required investment) as well as from the steady streams of content flowing from multiple net works.

Identity portability is such that a single profile would provide access across social networking sites with a single login and shared information.


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Open Source

OpenSocial code refers to a set of common APIs that enable developers to write software for applications that will run on multiple social websites.

API stands for application programming interface. It’s a programming model that enables a piece of software to interact with other software.

Open Source Model involves open source developers posting their programs on a public site and a community of volunteers is free to tinker with them, develop other applications using the code, then give their changes away for free.


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Social Networking Activities

Secondary content consists of things that others create which we feel are worth redistributing to our social networks, such as retweets, links to a celebrity blog, or even brands we “like” on our Facebook page.

Social sharing provides people with the tools they need to reveal elements of their digital identities.


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Engagement

What does it mean to engage?


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Social Media Marketing, 2e©

Engagement

Brands can matter by providing apps that fit strategically with the brand and consumer needs; these apps are called brand butlers.

Brand Fans Friendvertising is a brand’s use of social

networking to build earned media value and purposefully cultivate.

An online community is a fandom

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Characteristics of Social Fans

Emotional engagement:The object is meaningful in the emotional life of the fan.

Self-identification:The fan personally and publicly identifies with likeminded fans.

Cultural competence:The fan has a critical understanding of the object, its history, and its meaning beyond its basic functionality.

Auxiliary consumption:The fan collects and consumes related items and experiences beyond the basic object.

Production: The fan becomes involved in the production of content related to the object.


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Marketing Applications

Social presence Earned media Paid media


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Social Presence: Brands as Relationship Nodes

Brands may create a brand profile within selected social networking communities. In this way, the brand acts as a node in the network’s social graph.

The fan base is an indicator of the brand’s success in establishing a known presence within a community.

Return on emotion (conceptually) assesses the extent to which a brand has delivered a value in exchange for the emotional attachment fans have awarded it.


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Social Presence: Brands as Relationship Nodes

What are the brand’s core values? What social objects illustrate the values? What has the brand promised? What are the aspirational attributes? What traits are associated with the

brand? What opportunities exist? What stories bring the brand to life?


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Paid Media in Social Communities

Native advertising is a form of paid advertising that is based on a form unique to the vehicle within which it is placed.

Display ads may include text, graphics, video, and sound much like traditional print ads and commercials but they are presented on a website.

A landing page is the first page that a person sees when he or she clicks through an ad to reach a brand’s target site.


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Paid Media in Social Communities

Social ads are online display ads that incorporate user data in the ad or in the targeting of the ad and enable some form of social interaction within the ad unit or landing page. There are three variations on social ads:

A social engagement ad contains ad creative (image and text) along with an option to encourage the viewer to engage with the brand (e.g., clickable “Like” button).

A social context ad includes ad creative, an engagement device, and personalized referral content from people in the viewer’s network.

Organic social ads are shared on a person’s activity stream following a brand interaction (such as liking the brand).


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Earned Media and Brand Engagement

Earned reach (the breadth and quality of contact with users) gained when people share positive brand opinions and branded content with others is invaluable because of the influence attributed to individual, personalized brand endorsements.

Influence posts occur when an opinion leader publishes brand-relevant content such as a blog post in social media.


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Is The Brand Ready for Social Communities?

Is the brand set up for engagement? If the brand participates in social media, where

should the brand be? How can the brand’s profiles be developed in

such a way as to reflect the brand’s personality?

If “fan pages” exist among brand loyalists on social networking sites, how can the brand leverage fan sites to better meet its objectives?

How can the brand integrate its social network presence into other campaign components?


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